News and blog posts from our students and faculty

Monthly Archives: August 2010

First design research class with Serota was tonight. Yay! “Research” may not sound fun on the surface, but I love design research because it’s so much about being observant and getting to know people and trying to understand and empathize with why they do the things they do. It’s also cool that I can dust off and re-use the fun parts of journalism and oral history that I’ve picked up in the past.

I’m also pretty excited about our topic. (Can you guess what it is from the video below?) I’m really interested in what people think about the act, and why they do it or not, and how they perceive the systems currently in place.

Every design firm (and many individual designers) have their own version of “The Design Process Graphic.” Jon showed his yesterday in our first class, and Laura walked through hers today during our second. I thought I’d add to the conversation and share my personal favorite process graphic, the Design Squiggle that’s used by the California-based firm Central:

I like how up front it is about the messiness that’s inherent in the design process. Mostdesignprocessgraphics are much cleaner and structured, though most designers will readily tell you that it’s an idealized version of the process. With the Design Squiggle, you don’t have to make that caveat. It lets you inform the client immediately that the journey won’t be straight forward, but that if you trust the process, good results will come out of it (and you back that up with concrete stories of success).

If you’d like to see a collection of other interesting process graphics, Nathan Cooke has a great collection on his blog. Anyone else have a personal favorite?

In high school I dabbled in lots of mediums: photography, video production, web design, graphic design, fine art and other things. I remember being frustrated that as a freshman at college I was suppose to pick one of these disciplines to focus on for the next four years.

Then I found the industrial design program. I saw all kinds of creations tumbling out of department: photographs, videos, 3d models, and more. I instantly knew that it was the major for me.

As I got deeper into the curriculum I found out that not only did industrial designers create in every medium, we also borrowed methodologies from an ever wider range of professions.

A primary focus of my education was using contextual research, personal interviews, and other techniques developed by anthropologists to observe and understand how people used products and the personal relationship that people form with the things they use and experience.

One of the foundational classes that I’ll be taking this quarter is Interaction Design Research and Synthesis (taught by the fabulous Lauren Serota) which builds on a lot of this stuff. I’m very excited about spending time sharpening my skills and looking at all of this stuff anew. This definitely one of the skills I haven’t been using near as much as I could.

This probably serves as a huge tangent as we discuss “Role and Responsibility” in the next couple of weeks, but I think education is a key factor in creating today’s and tomorrow’s consumers. It may even offer a way to break the consumptive cycles. At the very least, it’s one of the “levers and pulleys” operating on the system.

Sometimes I have a hard time talking about things I am passionate about such as design, such as education, such as sustainability. They are BIG, and they need to CHANGE. but I cannot yet talk passionately and authoritatively about how or why.

AC4D’s theory classes will be a kicking bootcamp for researching issues, formulating strong opinions, and practicing how to argue a point effectively. Part of it is just learning the language, learning more words in order to be able to think about things in new ways. Part of it is getting into the habit of following up research with synthesis into new ideas. I can read all the articles, blogs, and tweets I want, but if I continue to merely re-blog and re-tweet and re-summarize, I neither internalize what I am reading to remember it, nor can I formulate my own point of view, nor do I contribute anything new to the dialogue.

I do think I am a smart critical thinker, and I naturally try to connect ideas from various arenas, yet why do I feel so unconfident about presenting my views to a public audience? Shouldn’t this kind of thinking be taught and practiced and embedded into K-12 education, not to mention college? How can we leave university without having internalized the role of critical thinker?

I posit this is largely because today’s classrooms still propagate the “banking system” of education. That’s an idea made popular by Paolo Freire, and here is a quick simplified synopsis of that part of Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In the “banking system,” teachers are still regarded as the experts with all the answers as well as all the questions, and the students are the empty vessels or accounts that need to be filled with deposits of information. This leads to passive (often lecture-style) one-way transmissions of information. Freire argues for a problem-posing process that includes dialogue between teacher-students and student-teachers as they communicate, create, and interact with the world around them to enable all the parties involved to learn.

How did you learn how to swim? Cook? Use email?

What things have you learned from a textbook? From a Powerpoint? From a lecture?

What ingredients or actions are necessary for you to truly learn and connect with new information?

Imagine the TRUST that would need to happen on all levels to break the habits of the current system! (Interestingly, the current system was heavily influenced by innovations in mass production—notably the assembly line model—when it was created.)

Then imagine the world if nearly everyone who went through our public education system had been given agency, critical thinking skills, voice, and the habit of constantly questioning their world in order to learn from it and shape it…

There are parallels between the design process and critical thinking. One could even argue that to go through the process of design is to think critically about a certain problem to arrive at a solution. It would even seem that teaching design thinking would be a way to teach critical thinking. Kids need these skills in addition to creative confidence—especially if we want them to be productive citizens who will constantly push for change and (gasp!) question authority instead of mindless consumers who accept and perpetuate the status quo.

During tonight’s class, we also discussed the similarities and differences between Art, Science, and Design. Some consider Design as a melding of Art and Science, but can it not also its own distinct liberal art? Why can’t it be taught as a foundation and earlier, in K-12 education?

One big problem is that the “banking system” is still so prevalent in public education, even if most education majors read Freire at some point in their training. You can’t teach design through lectures and textbooks, so we can’t fit design projects into the current curriculum.

Let’s flip that around. We need to teach design by having students “learn through doing,” so let’s have that shape how we teach. Maybe getting design thinking into classrooms would provide new models of education for the entire system.

As Scott mentioned in his post, part of the focus of class today was consumerism, and design’s role in shaping it. The discussion reminded me of a fascinating and controversial statement I heard recently regarding the role of consumerism and Western culture in creating an environment that encourages radicals and fundamentalism.

“The [clash between fundamentalist religion and more secular values] is as big a problem in Arkansas as it is in Afganistan [...] and we in the West who are not fundamentalist need to look at what we’ve done wrong such that fundamentalists are on the rise. This is not to excuse the Taliban or Sarah Palin or any of those people whatsoever, but it is to say that we of progressive, Western values need to look at what we’ve done wrong so as to provoke this kind of reaction, and I think we’ve done a lot wrong.

“The rampant consumerist culture that suggests ‘he who dies with the most toys wins’ is understandably going to provide a kind of backlash. I think a lot of the move towards fundamentalism in different cultures is an attempt to say “No, actually I want my life to mean something more than that, I want to be guided by certain ideals of the way the world should be.” [...] If we continue to see fundamentalists as irrational idiots or if we look at them as cowardly, weak-kneed people who can’t understand how to live in the modern world… then we are lost, because the criticism of consumerist, contemporary culture is in many ways a valid one.” (Transcribed from the podcast)

Though controversial, I find her claim that the pendulum swing of fundamentalism is due, at least in part, to consumerism to hold a ring of credibility. Certainly the search for meaning is a powerful human motivator, and viewing fundamentalists as rational agents searching for meaning is a more mature and hopeful viewpoint. I can think of no immediate way to validate her hypothesis, but I would welcome suggestions.

Assuming her hypothesis to be true, though, the big question for us is whether designing meaningful interactions (instead mindless consumer experiences) could create a more moderate and peaceful society. Further, is it enough to simply design more meaningful interactions, or do we need to aim for a more fundamental shift in our culture? How would we approach that?

After the first evening of class (umm, hooray!) I left feeling a little beside myself. We discussed high level design theory and touched on the drivers of consumption from various influences. I’ve cyclically entertained a degree of self-loathing of my marketing background/application as being seedy and disingenuous. Driving consumer behavior to buy more widgets can feel empty over time.

Does “compelling” store signage truly equate to increased sales at the register?Does a known manufactured obsolescence equal regular intervals of repeat customers or a recurring revenue stream?

These thoughts (and many others) are precisely the reason why I applied to AC4D. I for one welcome my design theory overloards.

And our work will be thoughtfully considered because there are problems in the world more worthy of our time and efforts than others. We will design for impact. We will design for profit. If a solution is not sustainable in all its aspects, it will not be successful.

As we met for the inaugural class’s orientation Aug. 28, the energy and potential in the room were readily apparent. (And Jon Kolko was exuding the apparently rare state of excitement.) 11 students + 4 faculty from diverse professional backgrounds and geographic locations:

Via Toronto, Ambato, and Chicago.

Via New York, Paris, and Chennai.

Via Detroit, Corpus, Savannah, San Fran.

Via Philly and D.C. and Houston.

Via Austin, back in Austin, starting anew in Austin.

Not only are we well-traveled and setting off into uncharted territories (and thus more inclined to think outside the box), I realized that we have communities and connections in all those corners of the world. While we have converged in Austin and will be working with a local client on a real project with actual stakeholders and actual consequences (rare in design education), our voices and ideas about the design industry, design education, social innovation, and design processes will have a reach far beyond Austin.

The faculty have set a tone and vision of designing and learning this next year as publically as possible. AC4D will be posting curricula, position papers, videos, tweets, and blog posts throughout the year. You can see what we’re reading when. You can watch “Personal Growth Videos” each week where each of us will document “what I learned” and “how I feel” about that week’s classes. You can follow us on Twitter or join our discussions about readings and projects on this blog. I hope we inspire discussions and debates and new projects.

I am really excited to discover, after Saturday, the diversity of People, the Quality of Projects and the great Formulation of Design Ideas & Commitment from the Faculty.

Here are my very first thoughts on the Johnson’s Backyard Garden Project in which I have a BIG preference. I am interested in working on nutrition plans and health care problems. Obesity is growing more common in Europe and touches especially poor communities and young people. There is a lot to do.

For example, Jamie Oliver, an English Chef, won a TED Prize wish last year for his work : ” Teach every child about food”.

” I profoundly believe that the power of Food has a primal place in our homes that binds us to the best bits of life… We have an awful reality right not. Fat is the biggest killer in the US today, this is a global problem.”

The JBG project seems to me very complete and very close to AC4D’s goals.

explore who are the existing and the future CSA members (a rich Research Project);

solve organizational and logistical problems;

understand and design solutions that help to promote JBG’s far-reaching goal: build a business model that can grow to reach self-sufficiency and self-profit but also that can train others farmers to grow … Some kind of a networked business. Check out this article on Edible Austin Magazine.

We had orientation this weekend and met everyone. I am very excited to spend the year working with such a talented group of people. The image is a small collection of some common ideas, thoughts and themes that were part of the weekend and show a small piece of what lies ahead. The work begins with the first class tonight.